2013 International Conference on Power, Energy and Control (ICPEC)

Cascaded seven level inverter with reduced number

of switches using level shifting PWM technique
T V V S Lakshmi *, Noby George*, Umashankar S* and Kothari D P **
* Power Electronics and Drives Division,
School of Electrical Engineering,
VIT University, Vellore - 632014, Tamil Nadu

**Director General,
J B Group of Institutions
Hyderabad

*valli.srivathsav@gmail.com, *nobygeorget@gmail.com, *umashankar.s@vit.ac.in, **dpk0710@yahoo.com

Abstract A multilevel inverter is a power electronic device that

is used for high voltage and high power applications and has
many advantages like, low switching stress, low total harmonic
distortion (THD). Hence, the size and bulkiness of passive filters
can be reduced. This paper proposes two new topologies of a 7level cascaded multilevel inverter with reduced number of
switches than that of conventional type which has 12 switches.
The topologies consist of circuits with 9 switches and 7 switches
for the same 7-level output. Therefore with less number of
switches, there will be a reduction in gate drive circuitry and also
very few switches will be conducting for specific intervals of time.
The SPWM technique is implemented using multicarrier wave
signals. Level Shifted triangular waves are used in comparison
with sinusoidal reference to generate Sine PWM switching
sequence. The number of level shifted triangular waves depends
on the number of levels in the output. i.e. for n levels, n-1 number
of carrier waves. This paper uses 1 KHz SPWM pulses with a
modulation index of 0.8. The circuits are simulated using SPWM
technique and the effect of the harmonic spectrum is analyzed. A
comparison is made for the topologies with 9 switches and 7
switches and an effective reduction in THD has been observed for
the circuits with less number of switches. The THD for 9 switches
is 14% and the THD for 7 switches is 12.5%. The circuits are
modeled and simulated with the help of MATLAB/SIMULINK.

using MATLAB/SIMULINK and SPWM pulses are

generated for the same using the phase opposition
disposition method
II. CONVENTIONAL 7-LEVEL CASCADED MLI
A stepped output voltage and current can be obtained in a
cascaded MLI by cascading several H-bridge inverters. A
single H-bridge serves the purpose of 3-level output Vdc, 0,
-Vdc. On adding another H-bridge to the existing H-bridge,
number of levels increase by two. Hence for a 7-level
output, three H-bridge inverters are to be cascaded and it
consists of 12 switches in total.

Index Terms multilevel inverter; PWM Techniques; Total

Harmonic Distortion (key words)

I. INTRODUCTION
The initial inverters developed were only of two levels. The
technology got advanced and multi level inverters were
developed which can produce a desired output of different
voltage levels from many input DC voltage sources [1]. As
the number of levels increase, the output attains near
sinusoidal wave shape reducing the harmonics. The more
the number of levels, the lesser is the harmonic content.
Hence MLIs are becoming popular in applications where
high voltage and high power are used. The disadvantage of
MLI is that it involves many switches which require
corresponding gate drive circuitry. This in turn increases
the expenditure. Therefore the reduction in number of
switches is essential. A conventional 7-level cascaded MLI
requires 12 switches and the number of switches can be
reduced to 9 [2] and 7. The respective circuits are simulated

Fig.1 One leg of Typical 7- level cascaded multilevel inverter

III. EXISTING 9-SWITCH TOPOLOGY

This topology consists of a series connected set of inverters
which are capable of producing a stepped output [2]. No
two switches in the same leg conduct at the same time so as
to prevent short circuit across the voltage source. Each
voltage source is Vdc and thus we can get a maximum
voltage 3Vdc. We get 7-level output voltage having Vdc,
2Vdc, 3Vdc in positive half cycle, zero level, -Vdc, -2Vdc, -3Vdc in negative half cycle. H-bridge takes care of the
positive and negative level voltages. Switches S1 and S2
serve for positive level. S3 and S4 serve for negative level.

978-1-4673-6030-2/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

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2013 International Conference on Power, Energy and Control (ICPEC)

TABLE 2. SWITCHING STATES OF 7-SWITCH

TOPOLOGY

State

Switch
S1

Switch
S2

Switch
S3

Output voltage

OFF

OFF

ON

Vdc

OFF

ON

OFF

Vdc+Vdc

ON

OFF

OFF

Vdc+Vdc+Vdc

V. METHODOLOGY

Fig.2 7-level using 9-switches topology

TABLE 1. SWITCHING STATES OF 9-SWITCH

TOPOLOGY

State

Switch
S5

Switch
S6

Switch
S7

Switch
S8

Switch
S9

Output
Voltage

ON

OFF

ON

OFF

ON

Vdc

ON

ON

OFF

OFF

ON

Vdc+Vdc

ON

ON

OFF

ON

OFF

Vdc+Vdc+Vdc

Fig. 3 7-level waveform

In order to reduce the harmonic distortion further, two more

switches are reduced and thus 7-swicth topology is developed.

There are two schemes of carried based modulation. They

are phase shifting and level shifting methods. Phase shifting
scheme produces higher amount of total harmonic
distortion when compared to level shifting scheme.
Therefore level shifting is taken into consideration.
Level shifting scheme is further divided into three schemes.
In-phase disposition, phase opposition disposition, alternate
phase opposition disposition [3]. While using level shifting
scheme, an N level inverter requires N-1 carrier waves.
In-phase disposition involves all the carriers that are in
phase. All the carrier waves above zero reference are in
phase while the ones below zero are 180 degrees out of
phase in case of phase opposition disposition. Each carrier
is 180 degrees in phase difference with its neighboring
carrier in alternate phase opposition disposition
This project is worked on phase opposition disposition
scheme for the pulse generation for both 9 switch and 7
switch topologies. Positive pulses are generated when
reference wave is greater than all the carrier waves. Zero
level is produced when reference is greater than lower
carriers and lesser than the upper carriers. Negative pulses
are produced when reference is lesser than all the carrier
waves as shown in fig.5

IV. PROPOSED 7-SWITCH TOPOLOGY

Apart from the H-bridge, only one switch will be
conducting at every instant and thus making the operation
very simple. For example, we get output Vdc only when S3
is conducting. The switching sequence for different voltage
levels is shown below in the table. Each voltage source is
Vdc.

Fig.5 phase opposition disposition pwm

VI. SIMULATION AND PULSE GENERATION

RESULTS
The simulation is being done for the existing topology and the
proposed topology by using nine and seven IGBT switches
respectively. Simulations are done by using SPWM technique
by comparing a sine wave and a triangular wave. Harmonic
spectrum analysis also done through using FFT window in
MATLAB/Simulink
Fig.4 7-level using 7-switches topology

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2013 International Conference on Power, Energy and Control (ICPEC)

Fig.6 MATLAB/Simulink model of 7-level existing topology

Fig.9 MATLAB/Simulink model of 7-level proposed topology

Fig.7 7-level inverter output using 9 switches

Fig. 10 Pulse generation using pod pwm method for S1 in proposed topology

Fig. 8 FFT analysis of 7-level inverter using 9 switches

Fig.7 & Fig.8 Shows the output waveform of the 7-level

inverter with nine switches which is being produced by
SPWM technique [8] and it is done by comparing a triangular
of 5 KHz with a sine wave of 50Hz. Although the Total
Harmonic Distortion is very low, the 7th and the 13th order
harmonics are high in this analysis.
Fig.9 Shows the MATLAB/simulink model of the proposed
topology, in this model we are using only seven IGBT
switches instead of nine in the existing topology .The pulses
for the switches are being generated using SPWM technique
and the FFT analysis window is being given in Fig.14

Fig. 11 Pulse generation using pod pwm method for S2in proposed topology

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Parameter

Switch S1

Voltage stress

-18v

Switch S2

Switch S3

-6v

6v

TABLE 4.COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT MLIS WITH PROPOSED 7SWITCH TOPOLOGY

No. of
capacitors
No. of diodes
No. of
switches

Capacitor
clamped
14

Diode
clamped
6

Cascaded

Proposed

>=8

10

10

12

Fig. 12 Pulse generation using pod pwm method for S3 in proposed topology

VII. CONCLUSION

Fig. 13 7-level inverter output using 7 switches

In this paper, a new topology with 7 switches and 9 switches

are introduced and the same 7-level output is observed in
either of the cases.
Circuits are simulated using
MATLAB/SIMULINK software and total harmonic
distortions for both the circuits are obtained. It can be seen
that there is a reduction in THD content for the 7-switch
topology when compared to that of 9-switcht. Phase
opposition disposition level shifting method is followed for
the pulse generation for both the topologies.
VIII. REFERENCES
[1]

Fig. 14 FFT analysis of 7-level inverter using 7 switches

Fig.13& Fig.14 show the output voltage and the harmonic

analysis of the proposed 7 level cascaded multilevel inverter
using 7 switches. When compared to the existing method we
will get more accurate sinusoidal output in the proposed
method. The Total Harmonic Distortion is less in the proposed
technology compared to existing topology the higher order
harmonics are also very less compared to the existing
technology.
The voltage stresses across switches is observed as s1>s2>s3.
Here the stress on s1 is the greatest. Therefore ratings of
respective IGBTs should be in the order s1>s2>s3
TABLE 3.COMPARISON OF VOLTAGE STRESS ACROSS SWITCHES

Ebrahim Babaei, A Cascade Multilevel Converter Topology With

Reduced Number of Switches, IEEE Trans. on Power electronics, Vol.
23, No. 6, pp. 2657-2664, 2008..
[2] Jacob James Nedumgatt, D. Vijayakumar, A. Kirubakaran, S.
Umashankar
A multilevel inverter with reduced number of
switches,Select VIT.
[3] Brendan Peter McGrath, and Donald Grahame Holmes, Multicarrier
PWM Strategies for Multilevel Inverters, IEEE Trans. on Industrial
Electronics, Vol. 49, No. 4, Aug. 2002.
[4] A. Nabae, T. Isao, and A Hirofumi, "A New Neutral-Point-Clamped
PWM Inverter," IEEE Trans. Ind. Applicat., vol. IA-17, No.5. pp. 518523, 1981..
[5] Andreas Nordvall, Multilevel Inverter Topology Survey, Master of
Science Thesis in Electric Power Engineering, Department of Energy
and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, Goteberg,
Sweden, 2011.
[6] P. W. Hammond, "A new approach to enhance power quality for
medium voltage AC drives," IEEE Trans. Ind. Applicat., vol. 33, pp.
202-208, 1997.
[7] Mehmet TMAY K.aatay BAYINDIR Mehmet Ura
CUMA
Ahmet TEKE, EXPERIMENTAL SETUP FOR A DSP BASED
SINGLE-PHASE INVERTER Department of Electrical &
Electronics Engineering, 01330,Balcali, Adana, Turkey
[8] Martina Calais, Lawrence J. Borle, and Vassilios G. Agelidis, Analysis
of Multicarrier PWM Methods for a Single Phase Five Level Inverter,
IEEE 32 Power Electronics Specialists Conf.,pp.1351-1356,2001.
[9]
Ned mohan, Tore.M, undeland, and William.P. Robbins power
electronics, converters, Applications and Design, Third edition, New
Delhi, Wiley India (P.)Ltd. Reprint.
[10] M.H.Rashid Power electronics : Circuits, Devices and applications.
Third edition, Prentice hall, 2004

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IX. AUTHORS INFORMATION
Umashankar. S (M11) received his Bachelor Degree in Electrical and
Electronics Engineering and Master Degree in Power Electronics in the year
2001 and 2004 respectively. Currently he is Asst.
Professor-Senior in the School of Electrical
Engineering at VIT University, Vellore. He
worked as Senior R&D Engineer and Senior
Application Engineer in the power electronics and
Drives field for more than 6 years. He has
published/presented
many
national
and
international journals/conferences. He has also coauthored/edited many books/chapters on wind
power/energy and allied areas. His current areas of
research activities include renewable energy, real
time digital simulator, HTS generator, FACTS, and power quality.

D. P. Kothari (F10) received the B.E. degree in

electrical engineering, the M.E. degree in power
systems, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical
engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology
and Science (BITS), Pilani, India. Currently, he is
Director General, J B Group of Institutions,
Hyderabad, India. He was Head, Centre for Energy
Studies, lIT Delhi (1995-97), and Principal,
Visvesvaraya Regional Engineering College,
Nagpur (1997-98). He has been Director i/c, lIT
Delhi (2005) and Deputy Director (Administration), lIT Delhi (2003-06). He
has published/presented around 600 papers in national and international

journals/conferences. He has also co-authored/co-edited 22 books on power

systems and allied areas. His activities include optimal hydrothermal
scheduling, unit commitment, maintenance scheduling, energy conservation,
and power quality. He has guided 28 Ph.D. scholars and has contributed
extensively in these areas as evidenced by the many research papers authored
by him. He was a Visiting Professor at the Royal Melbourne Institute of
Technology, Melbourne, Australia, in 1982 and 1989. He was a National
Science Foundation Fellow at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, in 1992.
He is a Fellow of the IEEE, Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE)
and Indian National Academy of Sciences (FNASc). He has received the
National Khosla award for Lifetime Achievements in Engineering for 2005
from lIT Roorkee. The University Grants Commission (UGC) has bestowed
UGC National Swami Pranavananda Saraswati award for 2005 on Education
for outstanding scholarly contribution.
Noby George was born in Kannur, Kerala . Currently he is pursuing Masters
Degree in Power Electronics at VIT University, Vellore. He received his
Bachelor Degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering in the year 2010 at
Vimal Jyothy Engineering college affiliated to Kannur University, Kerala.
His research interests are cascaded multilevel Inverter, Power Electronics
application in Solar and Wind Energy,analog electronics
T V V S Lakshmi was born in Hyderabad, Andhra pradesh . Currently she is
pursuing Masters Degree in Power Electronics at VIT University, Vellore.
She received her Bachelor Degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering in
the year 2011 at MVSR engineering college affiliated to osmania University,
Andhra Pradesh. Her research interests are cascaded multilevel Inverter,
Power Electronics applications in fuel cells and photo voltaics, electrical
machines.

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